Born under a lucky star? Latin American CEOs' perceptions about their own career development

This article explores Latin American Chief Executive Officers' (CEOs') perceptions about the influence of career self-management practices and chance events on their career pathways. Through an edited topical life story approach, we investigate the relationship between those variables throughout CEO's career trajectories in the Latin American context. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 22 CEOs working for multinational companies were conducted. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed with the aid of QSR NVivo 7 software. The study showed that even in volatile macroeconomic environments, typical of Latin American countries, CEOs do plan their careers. Career planning constitutes the backbone of the career management process. To deal with low predictability chance events, CEOs relied on active development network as the main career self-management practice. However, choice of mobility was the key career self-management behavior when responding to high predictability chance events. These central strategies were frequently combined with other career self-management practices, taking into consideration the type of chance event being responded to. According to this study, if individuals want to develop their careers in unstable environments, they will need to be proficient in career self-management practices, with particular emphasis on network development and choice of job mobility, as well as in happenstance skills.     

Responsible investments reduce market risks

Decisions in Economics and Finance - Responsible investments are considered one of the driving factors of revenues growth enhancing risk-adjusted returns. This paper investigates the effects of...     

The Effect of Fiscal Decentralization on Corruption: A Non‐linear Hypothesis

This study advances the literature on the effect of decentralization on corruption by proposing a theoretical motivation for the hypothesis that the corruption‐minimizing decentralization arrangement prescribes intermediate decentralization degrees: a ‘middle’ decision‐making power of local governors may mitigate the tradeoff between the rent‐seeking incentive for local politicians and the effectiveness of their voters’ monitoring. The estimation of a non‐linear empirical model strongly confirms that a decentralization degree between 15% and 21% minimizes corruption even through different estimation procedures, introduction of control variables and the use of internal and external IV and of alternative decentralization and corruption measurements.     

Is there a trade-off between free capital mobility,financial stability and fiscal policy flexibility in the EMU?

The recent dynamics characterizing the Eurozone economy suggest the existence of a new policy trilemma faced by its member countries. According to this policy trilemma, there is a trade-off between free capital mobility, financial stability and fiscal policy flexibility. In this paper, we analyze the foundations of such a trade-off and, based on the data for 11 Eurozone countries, present an empirical investigation on the existence of the trilemma. The results highlight the existence of the trade-off, with some differences between member countries. The existence of this trilemma in the Eurozone provides arguments for implementing centralized financial supervision together with fiscal and monetary reforms that should strengthen the currency union.     

Heterogeneous technology and panel data: The case of the agricultural production function

Economic growth involves reallocating resources from traditional to new techniques of production, creating new relationships between particular resources and productivity. The paper analyzes the implications of this process on the estimation of agricultural production functions using a panel of countries. The data includes a measure of capital in agriculture absent from most studies. We employ a heterogeneous technology framework where implemented technology is chosen jointly with inputs to interpret information obtained in the empirical analysis of panel data. In this framework, estimates depend upon the economic environment, which is represented by state variables. It turns out that the old problem of identifying the production function cannot be resolved through the use of instrumental variables, but can be resolved using the allocation error. The paper discusses the scope for replacing country and time effects by observed state variables. The empirical results differ from those reported in the literature for cross-country studies, largely in augmenting the elasticities of capital and land and reducing those of fertilizer and labor. The evaluation of the marginal value productivity accounts for the flow of capital and fertilizer to agriculture and the flow of labor to other sectors, thereby contributing to overall economic growth.     

Why co‐creation experience matters? Creative experience and its impact on the quantity and quality of creative contributions

This article introduces ‘virtual design competitions’ as a new means of opening up the innovation process and enriching the companies, ‘design‐ideas’ by utilizing the creativity of a multiplicity of external designers and enthused consumers all over the world. The ‘Swarovski Enlightened^? jewellery design competition’, explored in this study, demonstrates the enormous potential of virtual co‐creation platforms. It further highlights the importance of the co‐creation experience and its impact on the quantity and quality of designs submitted. First, we introduce the idea of virtual co‐creation platforms and the requirements on the design of such a platform. Second, we explore the impact of the co‐creation experience on the content contributed by participants. Our study shows that co‐creation experience significantly impacts the number of contributions by consumers as well as the quality of submitted designs. Our paper contributes to a better theoretic understanding of the impact of a participant's perceived autonomous, enjoyable, and competent experience, as well as participants' perceived sense of community on their experience. From a managerial perspective, it provides guidance in designing successful idea and design competitions. While innovation managers may be interested in creative contributions, for participants, it is the experience which matters. Fully featured community platforms rather than single idea submission websites are required to attract creative users to submit their ideas and designs.     

Identification of Economies of Scope in a Stochastic Production Environment

This paper extends the definition of economies of scope to multioutput firms that face an uncertain production environment. Identification of economies of scope in this environment, however, requires separability assumptions on the technology. These identification restrictions are demonstrated in the paper. For each identification restriction, the definition of economies of scope is generalized to the case of uncertain production and risk aversion.
L'article que voici élargit la définition des économies de gamme aux entreprises à produits multiples aux prises avec une situation incertaine au niveau de la production. Pour cerner les économies de gamme dans une telle situation, il faut poser l'hypothèse de la séparation des technologies. Les auteurs illustrent ces restrictions et généralisent la définition des économies de diversification pour chacune d'elles dans le cas d'une production incertaine et de l'aversion du risque.     

A small place,by Jamaica Kincaid: envisioning literary tourism in Antigua

ABSTRACT

This work departs from a reading of the novelistic essay A small place (1988), by Jamaica Kincaid, to analyse the representation of the tourism industry and of tourists in Antigua (the author's birthplace). From there, we present Kincaid's text as ‘tourist literature’ (Hendrix, 2014), also aiming to contribute to the examination of tourism-centred literary texts. Within the context of literature and tourism studies as well as comparative studies, this paper examines Kincaid's literary text in order to consider the promotion of literary tourism in Antigua. This example is then considered in light of recent contributions from literary tourism, space production, community-based tourism, mass tourism as well as responsible and sustainable tourism. Literary heritage as a resource for the tourism industry could bring tourists and locals closer and conspire to break down barriers between the largely dark-skinned hosts and the white tourists in Antigua.     

How do firms combine different internationalisation modes? A multivariate probit approach

Most of the literature on the relationship between firm’s participation in international markets and firm heterogeneity focuses on export and foreign direct investment. This paper considers a wider range of forms of internationalisation that firms could combine into different patterns. With the purpose of analysing the selection of heterogeneous firms into different internationalisation patterns, we jointly model the decisions on the forms of internationalisation through a multivariate probit. This model allows us to avoid any a priori assumption about the firm’s behaviour. In this context we study the complementarity/substitutability relationships between forms of internationalisation. The results obtained show that: (i) neglecting some forms could lead to an incomplete representation about the firm’s internationalisation strategy, (ii) different firm’s characteristics influence the choice of internationalisation pattern, i.e. some types of firm are more prone to choosing one type of process over another, (iii) complementarity between forms of internationalisation seems to be preferred over substitution, but some heterogeneity also arises in this context.